Rina Kroes, www.challies.com

“There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me.” (J.I. Packer)

“The cross declares for all time and eternity that we are bankrupt and have no currency to buy the favor of heaven.” (John Stott)

“If you were a hundred times worse than you are, your sins would be no match for his mercy.” (Tim Keller)

“The more spiritually alive and mature we are, the more we recognize how far short we fallof the glory of God. The closer we get to a mirror, the more clearly we perceive our imperfections. The mirror for Christians is Christ. Therefore, it should not surprise us that those who have known Him best have been most aware of their imperfections and most appreciative of His love and grace.”  (from Extreme Righteousness: Seeing Ourselves in the Pharisees– by Tom Hovestol)

“Even doubting thoughts and feelings that border on sin are better laid out before the gracious eyes of the Lord than nursed in our hearts. God will not be shocked! He knows our inmost thoughts anyway!” (Iain Duguid)

“Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. ‘He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep’ (Psalm 121:4). But we will. For we are not God. Once a day, God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable.
To cure us of this disease, God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day. How humiliating to the self-made corporate executive that he has to give up all control and become as limp as a suckling infant every day.
Sleep is a parable that God is God and we are mere men. God handles the world quite nicely while a hemisphere sleeps. Sleep is like a broken record that comes around with the same message every day: ‘Man is not sovereign… Man is not sovereign… Man is not sovereign.’
Don’t let the lesson be lost on you. God wants to be trusted as the Great Worker who never tires and never sleeps. He is not nearly so impressed with our late nights and early mornings as he is with the peaceful trust that casts all anxieties on him and sleeps.” (John Piper)

“Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.” (Martin Luther)